


In A Crowd Of Thousands (SongFic In Space)

by MerryDew (Honey_Dew_Mellon)



Series: Musicals; A Star Wars AU [5]
Category: Anastasia (1997), Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: AU, F/M, Force Sensative! Anya, Force Sensative!Dimitri, Kiffar!Dimitri, Mentioned!Lily, Mentioned!Olga, Mentioned!Vlad, Musicals in Space, Space AU, Star Wars AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-17 04:30:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16967712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Honey_Dew_Mellon/pseuds/MerryDew
Summary: This is exactly what the title says. A songfic of In A Crowd Of Thousands set in my star wars musical verse. The characters from Anastasia are going to be an amalgamation of the animated movie, the musical, and real life with a dash of star wars. No prior knowledge of star wars required.Not Beta'd





	In A Crowd Of Thousands (SongFic In Space)

**Author's Note:**

> So in this work cities equate planets, and countries equate systems. As such place names are as follows;  
> Space!France - Zoater  
> Space!Paris - Deneb  
> Space!Russia - Ruzen

                Dimitri didn’t know why it felt so good to be holding Anastasia. All he knew was it did and he was okay with that. She’d picked up dancing pretty quickly, a lot quicker than he had but they still practiced every night. It had become routine on their trip here and now that they were surrounded by the strangeness of Deneb it had become an escape.

Especially since in only a few days she would be meeting with the Grand Duchess and reclaiming her birthright, he had mixed feelings about that.

                “How do I become the person I forgot I was?” They were pressed close together and he could feel her breathe on his neck as they spun around.

                “Huh?”

                She pulled back, it was hard for him to let her. He hadn’t heard what she’d said, he’d been too occupied with thoughts about what he was going to do after she became the Grand Duchess Anastasia. He looked down as she moved as far away as she could while still holding his hands.

                He pulled her into a gentle twirl as she repeated herself. “How do I become the person I forgot I was?” She tilted her head as he pulled her back in close and then she pulled away again. This time he reached out and kept a grip on one of her hands, she tugged him over to the seat that they had moved up against the wall to make room to dance.

                “I can tell you a story about Anastasia.” she raised an eyebrow and he shrugged. “I mean we never had a conversation or introduced ourselves but I guess we met once.” He’d thought about that day a lot. He’d been thinking about it when he’d come up with the plan to use a fake Anastasia as a get rich scheme and since he’d found her he’d been thinking about it more.

_It was June_

_I was ten_

_I still think of that day now and then_

_A parade and a girl And a crowd of thousands_

Dimitri squirmed through to the front of the crowd on the street. Events like this and the crowds that they attracted were a street kid’s dream. People were packed in so tightly that, even if he’d been being clumsy – which he never was – it would still have been impossible for people to figure out who’d picked their pocket. His jacket felt heavy, the pockets were weighed down with valuables that he had picked up on passes back and forth through the crowd.

He reached into his pocket for a moment and tried to keep a grin off his face as he felt the bulk of the credits that he’d snatched off a tourist. Providing he could find a good fence today’s haul might be best that he’d ever had. The only difficult thing would be trying to hide it from his father.

His father hated the fact that Dimitri had started to steal so that they could have a little bit of emergency cash, but there wasn’t much that the man could do about it. His father had to work all the time and when he wasn’t working he came home and promptly passed out, he seemed to be in denial about how bad things had gotten. Since Ruzen had backed out of its commitment to support the resistance against the first order the prices of everything had sky rocketed, rent included. Still his father refused to hear any criticism of the Romanov government, he said that the royalty protected their people although he didn’t say what they protected them from. He said they should be grateful although he didn’t say what they should be grateful for.

He could hear the parade approaching now, the beating of the drums rattled the ground under his feet. He wasn’t sure about the reason behind this parade, probably some holiday or another that the royals used as an excuse to put all of their wealth and power on display. When he looked up he could see the floating banners, held in the air by some of the force sensitives that Ruzen policy protected from the empire. They furled gold, silver, and green under the sunlight and he couldn’t help staring.

By the time that he looked away from the twisting colours he realized that the crowd had grown too tightly packed for him to move. He was jammed in against the barriers with so many people at his back he couldn’t even shift, the guard standing on the other side seemed to be making a point of not looking down at him. That was probably for the best, the uniformed man had likely worked out that he was a pick pocket and was ignoring him so he wasn’t obligated to arrest him.

_She sat straight as a queen_

_Only eight but so proud and serene_

_How they cheered_

_How I stared In that crowd of thousands_

Trapped as Dimitri was there wasn’t anything he could do except try to blend in with the crowd. He strained with the rest of them to catch the first glimpse of the approaching nobles and started yelling just a few seconds after the man standing to his left. The moment that he could see the approaching hover-float his gaze trailed across the royal family and came to rest on one red haired girl.

Anastasia, the youngest daughter of the family, had a reputation. She was the trouble maker of the family and the only one that he ever read about in the holos. She had the lightest hair out of the entire family, red-blonde locks that fell down to the small of her back and was frequently held back in dark red ribbons. Just as frequently she pulled those ribbons out of her hair and let them fly into the crowds that gathered around the royal family, hopefully she would do so now.

Those ribbons had become a prized possession to people who collected anything that had the word royal attached to it. If he caught one then his father wouldn’t have to work over time for a month, the thought came unbidden to his mind and he instantly locked his eyes to the young girl’s hand and waited. He knew that he was staring at her harder than the rest of the yelling crowd but he didn’t care. He needed one of those ribbons, just one.

Her lips where parted slightly as she raised one of her ribbons over her head and let the breeze drag it out. She was so short that when she held out the ribbon as high as she could the end of it flicked against her oldest sister’s, Olga, cheek. The older woman glared at her and said something, it was too loud for her words to be overheard, before trying to snatch it away from Anastasia. The crowd yelled louder when the younger royal managed to keep the ribbon out of the hands of her sister.

He could see her large blue eyes scanning the crowd as she continued to wave the ribbon, alternately coming close to hitting Olga again or hitting Tatiana who stood on her other side. The older sisters were supposed to control the younger two but neither of them did so, instead they enjoyed the additional attention that Anastasia created with her antics.

_Then I started to run_

_And to call out her name_

_As the crowd on the road went wild_

_I reached out with my hand and looked up_

_And then she smiled_

                He remembered her saying in an interview once that she let go of the ribbons when someone in the crowd caught her eye and with that in mind he waited until the float drew level with him and then vaulted the barrier. No one else had that idea. The guard by his side tried to snag his arm but missed.

                He could only glance up for a moment before he had to turn his focus to dodging around the guards that had suddenly b-lined for him but he knew that Anastasia’s eyes followed him. She had stopped waving the scarf as he started to sprint alongside the float. “Anastasia!” he yelled, he should address her by her titles but with adrenaline flooding through him he couldn’t even remember them. Instead he just called for her again.

“Anastasia!” He had a lead on the security guards by just a few seconds, long enough that he was able to stop suddenly and bow. He had to make it quick so that he could get his eyes back up on Anastasia and watch as she let go of the ribbon. Dimitri turned and chased after it as the wind carried back over towards the barrier. He had to spring into the air in order to snatch it away from the grasping hands of other people who had followed his lead and gone over the barrier.

_The parade travelled on_

_With the sun in my eyes she was gone_

_But if I were still ten In that crowd of thousands I’d find her again_

He spun around just a half second before momentum would have carried him into the barrier, there was little doubt in his mind that the guards would still be coming after him and he was not going to let them hit him from behind. Dimitri knew that even if he was facing the guards then he couldn’t hope to do anything other than take the beating but he still was not about to let anyone attack him from behind, that was another thing that he father had drilled into his head. _Listen Dima never let anyone hit you from behind. If someone wants to put a beating on you then you stand up and you look them in the eyes._ He could almost hear the lesson now.

To his surprise there was no blow coming about to bring him to his knees, the moment that he turned he found himself blinded by the sun. Before he could blink enough to clear his eyes the barrier at his back dissolved and he found himself stumbled back into a mass of people who came surging forwards. They carried them with him until he managed to regain his bearings and shove his way out of the stream of people.

Someone tugged on the end of the scarf and he pulled it away with a snarl directed at whoever had tried to take it from him. Without meaning to he had read the impressions off it and he would be spaced before letting go of it while he could still feel the happiness rolling through him. In his mind he was momentarily transferred to a dressing room where Anastasia and her sisters twirled around as they picked from the dresses that servants held up for them. The ribbon was tied in Anastasia’s hair by an elderly Zankrei who cared deeply for the young girl.

He sagged against a wall, a real brick and mortar one opposed to a temporary one designed to hold back crowds, as the flood of memories and emotions ended. The ability to read impressions off of objects was a Kiffar trait that, according to his father, ran particularly strongly in their family. He could even read impressions off of other people if he focused and really tried. He’d done it a few times for tourists and made some decent money before his father made him promise never to do it again.

\--

Dimitri and Anastasia had returned to their dance, her hands held tightly to his shoulders and he rested his chin on her head as lightly as he could. He felt like if he held her too tightly then she would suddenly pull away. He let himself reach out just a little, just enough that he could get a sense of if she was comfortable and the wave of contentment that he felt was reassurance enough that he immediately stopped. It would be unfair for him to try to read her now, not when he had only explained his abilities to her in the loosest terms.

“If I hadn’t been distracted by the sun and reading the scarf then I probably would have continued to run after her… you. I can’t explain how or why but I just felt drawn to you then, almost like even if you had been just another pedestrian in that crowd I still would have managed to run into you somehow.” He chuckled awkwardly. “That’s not accurate, it was strange. I’ve only felt it a few times and it was always about someone that I could trust or that I would get to know better. I honestly hadn’t thought that much about why it was happening with you.”

“You’re making me feel I was there too.” She pulled back slightly and tipped her head back. He instantly missed the feeling of her being so close to him. Dimitri knew that he shouldn’t, in only a couple of days –if everything went according to plan- then he wouldn’t be seeing her at all. She would be restored to her grandmother’s side as an empress in exile and he would be flying away, alone in an expensive ship he’d bought with his reward money. Vlad would stay, they had never discussed it but he knew. There was no way that the older man was going to leave Lily’s side.

“Maybe you were.” He couldn’t hesitate for too long or think about things. Anna was a very perceptive woman and she was notice if he did. He wasn’t sure if she was really Anastasia. Even if she wasn’t almost everyone had come out to see that parade, there was a good chance that she had been brought out to see it with her parents. He could almost imagine it now, Anna with her parents and maybe a couple of siblings waving up at the royal family. He could even have passed her by at some point when he was pushing through the crowd. “Make it a part of your story.”

“A parade…” She was hesitant, slow to start with bright eyes gleaming up at him as she spoke.

“A parade.” He echoed her almost unwilling, he could feel that something was coming but he wasn’t sure what that could be. He had tried to find her memories once, at her request he had searched deep in her mind –as best as he could- but there had been nothing.

“Passing by…” They had stopped swaying now and he could hear confidence growing in her voice, something was already changing in her. Dimitri could see her eyes narrow as she focused on whatever story she was concocting in her head. Or maybe…

“Passing by.” This time he only echoed her because he was suddenly unsure.

_It was hot_

_Not a cloud in the sky_

_Then a boy caught my eye_

_In a crowd of thousands_

Anastasia narrowed her eyes as she let her gaze drift away from the cheering crowd and up towards the sky. It was blue, uninterrupted except for by news ships and droids that were recording the parade. She smiled at them, letting herself imagine that the people who watched the recordings would say that she was smiling at each of them separately. She had only made it through an eighth of ships and droids before Olga jammed an elbow into her ribs.

When she turned to her sister, meaning to return the jab, Olga pointedly waved one hand towards the crowd and did that thing where she frowned with her eyes while still wearing a wide smile. Anastasia hated that thing. She didn’t know how her sister did it and she didn’t know how she could learn to do it because no one would teach her. It didn’t feel fair that almost all of her older female relatives could carry off that look and they all refused to teach her, the only one who had never given Anastasia that look was her grandmother.

If Olga was going to force her to pay attention to the crowd then she was going to do it her own way. She let her gaze drift along the people that crowded the edge of the street and smiled as widely as she could as she reached up and stared to pull one of the ribbons free from her hair. She knew that the crowd got louder as she worked the length of fabric free from her intricate hair style. The maids who did her hair before her public appearances had started to make the styles more complicated in the hopes that it would be harder for her to free the ribbons and toss them to people.

She honestly didn’t see why her doing so was a problem. The ribbons were hardly expensive and she knew that the people who caught them usually sold them for a profit. As far as she was concerned that was a good thing, she tried to throw the ribbons to people who looked like they needed the money. So long as the people who bought them could afford it she didn’t think that was a problem.

Olga didn’t notice what she was doing until it was too late and she had pulled the end of the ribbon free from the tie holding it to the back of her skull. She heard the clip that had been holding it fall to the ground and managed to jerk away the ribbon before her older sister could grab it from her. The crowd shrieked as she swung the ribbon.

Anastasia started to look through the crowd for someone to throw it to. She looked for a second before her eyes fell on a boy who stood at the very front of the crowd, so close in fact that it seemed like he had been pushed forwards and had only been stopped by the low security barrier.

_He was thin_

_Not too clean_

_There were guards_

_But he dodged in between_

_Yes he made himself seen_

_In that crowd of thousands_

                The boy was slender with dark russet coloured hair that reminded Anastasia of her fathers. That was the only similarity that they shared. This boy was slender, scrawny with dark skin and hungry eyes. He was clearly a street kid, his clothing and skin were both marked with dust and the jacket he wore was a couple of sizes too big for him. His eyes were clearly tracking the ribbon as she waved it over her head and she nearly let go of it as the float drew level with him.

                Before she could he started to move, launching himself at the barrier and scrambling over in seconds. The guards couldn’t stop him. He’d surprised them in scaling the barrier like that and he dodged between them easily as he ran towards her and the float. There was determination glowing so brightly in his eyes that she could see it clearly.

_Then he called out my name_

_And he started to run_

_Through the sun and the heat_

_And crowd_

_I tried not to smile_

_But I smiled_

_And then he bowed_

                “Anastasia!” He yelled her name and she felt Olga’s hand grab onto the arm that wasn’t waving the ribbon over her head. She resisted her sister’s attempts to pull her back from the edge of the float as she watched the boy run, somehow keeping level with the float even as he dodged away from the guards that were trying desperately to grab him. He had a substantial amount of ground on the guards behind him and he was getting closer to the ones that stood between him and the float. “Anastasia!”

                It was hot enough that she was sweating just standing here, she couldn’t imagine how hot it must be for him as he sprinted with that large jacket flopping around him. She had all but forgotten about dropping the ribbon as she watched him continue to lead the guards on a chase around in circles until he stopped running for just a second, glanced up at her and then neatly bowed before he had to move again in order to get away from a guard that had nearly caught up to him during that brief pause.

                It was the bow that prompted her to let go of the ribbon at long last and she tossed it towards the boy as best as she could. Had the day been even a little bit windy the ribbon would have gone wide and ended up far away but she managed to toss it perfectly. Despite the fabric having no weight for her throw to properly direct it – by all logic it shouldn’t have been able to go exactly where she wanted despite how well she tossed it – it fluttered directly down to the boy, even moving to keep up with him as he continued to elude the guards. Eventually he jumped and snagged it out of the air, in the process turning his back to her and making a run back towards the barrier. As he did so the guards stopped pursing him, apparently content that he was harmless.

\--

                “I didn’t tell you that” Dimitri sounded stunned and she was sure that she sounded the same way when she responded.

                “You didn’t have to. I remembered!”

Anastasia felt Dimitri tense up and then he pulled back. She would have teased him or said something but her mind was suddenly too scattered for her to focus on that. She’d only talked to a couple of people about her memories possibly coming back and they had all assured her that it would be a slow process; that the memories would come back slowly and that they probably would never come back completely.

That wasn’t what happened. It was like a flood of experiences and sensations that washed over her and almost pushed her away. She suddenly remembered, actually remembered, many of the lessons that Dimitri and Vlad had taught her. She could remember her riding lessons, all the various relatives that she had been introduced to, and her childhood tantrums. The flood didn’t contain any semblance of logical order, memories from her early childhood clashed with memories that came later but she had no way to control it or stop it.

Absently, so far away that to her it was little more than a footnote as she remembered dancing around her room with Marie after her sister had been complemented on her art by one of her sterner painting teachers, she grabbed Dimitri’s arms and clutched as tightly as she could. He didn’t react, when the memories had come crashing down suddenly she had swayed – she wasn’t sure but she thought she had physically swayed – and he had instinctively grabbed her. Now he didn’t move at all, he had even pulled away and under her grip she could fell just how tense he had become.

_The parade_

_Traveled on_

_With the sun in my eyes_

_You were gone_

_But I knew_

_Even then_

_In a crowd of thousands_

_I'd find you again_

Anastasia loosened her grip on Dimitri’s arm as the memories receded in her mind. It felt like pieces of a puzzle had suddenly slotted into place in the back of her head and she felt complete for the first time since she had woken up in the hospital. The foremost memory in her mind was still of the parade, now that she knew him she had some idea as to what he had been doing at the parade. He had told her about the time he had spent pickpocketing people in crowds before that got too dangerous.

Even back then she had felt drawn to him, much as she had when she had accidentally wandered into the auditorium where he had been holding auditions in search of someone to play the role of the grand duchess. She hadn’t known what had pulled her into that shabby old building but now, now that she remembered her childhood lessons when her teachers had told her about the special connection that the Romanov family shared with the force, she could make a pretty good guess.

Her teachers had always told her ‘the force works in mysterious ways’ and now she wondered if the ripples of the revolution had already been impacting the force back then. She remembered that she had been told to watch out for when she got feelings about people and she wondered how it hadn’t occurred to her that it was some subtle nudge from the force that had directed her gaze to Dimitri during that parade.

Absently, her mind still wondering how this could happen and how it could be that she somehow managed to find Dimitri again after all those years she ran her hands up along his arms and towards his chest. She moved in closer as she trailed her hands up to his shoulders and then up to cup his head in her hands. She felt his throat move as he swallowed as she pushed up onto her toes and leaned in.

\--

                Dimitri blamed shock for keeping him still as he felt Anya- Anastasia- change in front of him. She had stumbled for a moment and, like a fool, he had reached out to steady her with his hands while his mind reached out to try and feel what was wrong. As such he had felt it when her memories suddenly came roaring back and hadn’t even had time to pull back and give her the chance to remember without him invading her privacy. He could feel her joy as the memories came flooding back and only when he felt her collect herself did he managed to remember to pull back into his own mind.

                He was stopped from physically pulling back by her grasp on his arms and her hands moving up past his elbows and then on up to his shoulders. He couldn’t read the look in her eyes and he didn’t try to read her memories as she moved closer to him and he saw her lips start to part. He was still too frozen by the fact that his gut had been right, that she really was Anastasia, to move away.

                Only when he suddenly heard someone’s footsteps approaching – he recognized that heavy tread as belong to Vlad and as meaning the older man was trying to be noisy to give them warning before he walked in – and Anastasia’s hands were on his face did he manage to control himself enough to pull away. Just as Vlad got to the door he managed to stumble back and his floundering mind came up with a way that he could fix this situation. He dropped down on one knee and brought Anastasia’s hand – Anastasia, not Anya, he needed to separate the two – to his lips.

                “Your highness.” He nearly chocked on the formal address but he managed to force it out of his mouth. Her eyes widened in surprise at his reaction just as Vlad opened the door to the room.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey if you got here please comment. I am so starved for comments.


End file.
